The only thing that could make my whole gym experience better would be the addition of a built-in, every single time, workout partner. And yesterday, I got it. Yes, my sweet, adorable, hottie of a boyfriend joined Fitness MD with me…so we’ll now be workin’ it out together. This is good for several reasons. First of all, I won’t miss him so darn much! It’s a long day to be gone at work and then go to the gym everyday for over an hour, so I’m thrilled to have some more “us time.” Also, we’ll be much more motivated to keep healthy food in the house, and as if the motivation from our trainers and such isn’t enough, we’ll have another motivator in one another. It’s good.

Last night was our first night together working out. And because our gym freaking loves torture, we started off with a big lap. The big lap has become my least favorite thing in the world. Literally, as soon as the trainer says “OK, guys, BIG LAP!” I internally start crying and bitching. OK, maybe a little external bitching too.

We took off together, and Andrew of course went ahead. He is a much more experienced runner than I am and actually enjoys it—a totally sick thing in my mind. When we do the big lap, we run around a parking lot and some buildings in a business park, and before I knew it, I was all alone, huffing and puffing behind the church that’s in the same parking lot. I was internally beating myself up for being so damn slow and gross looking when I run, and wondering why it was taking me so long to complete a half mile. Finally, I couldn’t even jog any more and relegated myself to a walk.

As I rounded the final corner and could see my gym again, I had my head down. I was not sure I’d even freaking make it. I haven’t been feeling my best the past few days (cramps of death!) and just felt totally beat. As I was sucking wind and sweating disgustingly, I looked up and guess what I saw?

There was Andrew running towards me, coming to finish the lap with me. Yes, he’d been done and didn’t really need to run a quarter of it again, but there he was, hauling it towards me to come cheer me on. He patted me on the back, gave me a big grin and said, “We’re a team and we’re gonna do this together.” And you know what? The rest of that big lap wasn’t so bad at all.